In a statement, the Armonk, New York-based company said it "continues to rebalance its workforce to meet the changing requirements of its clients and to pioneer new, high-value segments of the IT industry".

IBM declined to comment when approached by Computing.

According to Alliance@IBM, the company has already fired employees in Europe, Asia and South America this year, and the US job cuts will add to the number of layoffs that Big Blue has made.

The company, which last year struggled to lift revenue as it got to grips with new competitors offering cloud-based solutions, since sold off its x86 server business to Lenovo in a deal worth $2.3bn (£1.4bn).

The firm will now focus on cloud services and data analytics, which could mean that employees in its hardware division are the most at risk of being let go.

Sometimes, the power of the mainframe is the most cost effective answer. Computing's Peter Gothard puts Computing's readers' questions on the future of the mainframe to IBM's Z13 expert Steven Dickens.